For many decades, many popular sports, such as paddleball and handball, have been played on the playing walls that proliferated in school yards in metropolitan areas. In addition to paddleball and handball, children have created many more uses for these playing walls, such as a backstop for stickball, tennis practice, etc. The walls in common use are usually made of poured concrete and are very heavy and expensive. As a result, as people have moved from the metropolitan areas to the suburbs, there has been a growing need for these playing surfaces in the suburbs. Because of the expense of concrete walls, other substitutes have been sought. One such substitute are walls made of wood, but these walls have not been found to be acceptable. Balls do not bounce well off of such surfaces and the useful life of such walls is very short. As a result, there is a very urgent need for a playing wall which is simple to construct, which is relatively inexpensive, and which has a long service life.